TechnocratTechnocrat’s Random Thoughts

I don’t get as much time as I would like to play games any more.  But when I do I don’t waste my time on crappy games.  Anything that doesn’t get me right off the bat goes back, or get’s uninstalled.  That said I have played two games I really enjoy and thought I would share with you.

Saints Row 2 is going to have the label poor mans GTA.  Well that’s not a bad thing in my book.  To me there are a couple of things that make this game better than GTA.  First off there is no annoying phone calls.  No cousin calling you every other day to go out on a date.  The game is all about having fun and destroying things.  There is no real life moral dalemas, no real life keeping friends, no real life really at all.  It’s just well….fun.

Secondly is the HUGE amount of customization that is SORELY missing from GTA.  You can customize almost everything.  Your looks, your clothes, your cars, etc.  You can do it at almost anytime.   Makes the game much more interesting and more replay-able.

Finally the missions are easy to spot and the objects are pretty clear.  You know right where to go to get a mission and what to do when you get there.

It’s not a perfect game by any means.  The graphics are well mediocre.  But if you want to just have fun killing and destorying things for a couple of weeks (or days) check it out.

The next game is left 4 dead.  I have to say once again Value knocks one out of the park.  It’s 100% co-op game play, which can be good and bad depending on who you are playing with.  Having a mic is almost a must.  By the time you type something it can be too late.  It’s scary and great fun to play.

I do have one gripe about it.  The cost vs the amount of game play.  5 levels just doesn’t seem to be enough to justify $50 in my mind.  I sure hope the downloadable content starts flowing soon.  Plus they add the ability to make levels.  If not this game is going to be left for dead quickly as it will get played out.

I have been playing Mercenaries 2 for about 15 hours and according to the game I am 75% done.  So I figured I would drop in a review about it.

First the good, you can blow just about anything up.  It’s fun for awhile to just walk, run, drive, or fly around to different areas and towns and just blow things up.  Dropping ordnance like daisy cutters and artillery on buildings and people is great.

You can also use a number of different vehicles in the game.  Boats, planes, helicopters, cars, APC, etc.  It’s fun for awhile to steal them and try them out.  There are a bunch of guns also.  Though I found really all you need is the AK (or carbine) and the RPG.  You use the AK for far targets and the RPG for buildings and vehicles.  For everything else simply run in a zig zag patter so you don’t get shot as much and then use melee against them.  One hit of that brings them down.  Yeah that’s it.  I rarely shot anyone when not in a vehicle.

The game is entertaining for awhile.  Then it gets repetitive…quickly.

Which brings us to the bad.  First off is the graphics.  Boy are they sub par.  Feels like a game from 2 or 3 years ago.  Though not awful they aren’t great either.  But that’s not the worst part of the game.

That goes to the glitchy bugs and game play.  There are so many bugs and problems with this game it feels like they didn’t have a QA team at all.  Here is a good example, you have to take over a base in the middle of the jungle (get used to it because that’s going to happen a lot but I will come back to it.) by dropping smoke and having the friendly faction fly in a strike team to take over the main building.  All the while you have to kill all the enemies and blow up the other buildings to defend the strike team.  I guess because they are incompetent.

On my first try I took it over but died before I got the contract complete screen.  So I had to do it again.  Yet this time every building was now owned by a the faction I was helping.  But the ground guys were still the enemy faction.  So I just sat back and let them do the hard work until the mission was over.  This is one of MANY example of issues in the game.

I also got stuck, clipped, and glitched out a lot in this game.  More times than I should have.

The AI in this game is mildly retarded.  You can hide or trick them really easily.  It makes the game easy for the most part.  Add to that, that after the first few missions you can beat all the rest by simply bypassing the intended route, the game isn’t that hard at all.

What do I mean?  Well for example there is a mission where you are supposed to take a boat and do a beach landing and then run a gauntlet of enemies, tanks, and enemy structures.  By the way the worst is the structures.  After you play for awhile you will understand what I mean.

So instead of doing that I simply took a helicopter and crashed behind the main building.  The used C4 to blow through the wall and take over the build from behind.  I have done that on almost every mission like that. Or another good trick is when you need to blow a building up simply get close to it and there is usually a wall that blocks you from getting behind it.  Simply toss a smoke grenade for an air stike over the wall and then run.  You usually don’t even have to be close with the smoke.  The bomb will do all the work for you.

That’s why I am so close to being done at only 15 hours.  Add to that I have spent probably 5 or 6 hours messing around.

The game is also very repitive.  There are 4 mission types: take over a structure, blow a building up, kidnap someone, race a vehicles (which is pointless in this game).  Mostly you take over a structure.  At first it’s fun.  Then after a while you start to wonder why they couldn’t think up anything else.

So in the end, rent it if you want a few days of entertainment.  I do mean a few.  But I wouldn’t buy it!